For Movie Night this week, we sawGodzilla v. Kong: The New Empire (2024).
I didn't actually understand what was going on most of the time:
There was a Hollow Earth, which you can only get to through a space warp.
A Lost Civilization that predates anything on the surface, where people communicate through telepathy and use crystals to manipulate matter and antimatter.
A Chosen One.
A tribe of giant apes that live next to a volcano, and keep a giant glowing stegasaurus captive. King Kong joins them, becomes their leader after fighting an evil dude, and adopts a baby ape.
Another giant stegasaurus, which fights King Kong in Egypt and takes out the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Nearby Cairo is an Orientalist myth instead of a modern city with skyscrapers and Starbucks.
Is that a gay couple?
A giant glowing moth.
A fight between the two dinosaurs and two apes that takes out Rio de Janiero.
I guess you just have to say "Look! Monsters fighting!"
Five people go to the Hollow Earth to check on Disturbances in the Force or something.
1. Mikael (Alex Fern, top photo), the driver of the transport vehicle, who gets eaten by a man-eating plant right away.
2. Ilene Andrews, an expert on the Iwi Culture of Skull Island, where King Kong lived before he moved to the Hollow Earth.
3. Her adopted daughter Ji, the last of her tribe, who doesn't speak.
4. Tripper (Dan Stevens, left), a roguish, devil-may-care monster veterinarian.
5. Conspiracy theory podcaster Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry).
When Tripper shows up, you assume he's going to be smooching with Ilene by fadeout. That's what happens in 300,000 action adventure movies, right?
Nope. He mentions that they were friends in college, but gives no hint of a past or present relationship. Instead, he starts flirting with Podcaster Bernie, who is suspicious at first but warms up to him.
They hug.
More after the break
Bernie takes Tripper's arm, initiating the display. Tripper places his hand on Bernie's.
In the novelization "He reached over and took Trapper's arm. Trapper took his in turn, and they smiled, like a happy couple."
Another full body hug.
A hand on shoulder.
A heart-to-heart talk.
When Tripper devises a clever rescue, Bernie yells "I'm going to kiss you on the mouth." Promises, promises.
One expects a fade-out kiss, but the relationship goes no farther. It is a classic gay-subtext romance, of the sort queer kids used to look for, back in the days when same-sex love was never portrayed on screen or in real life, assumed not to exist: a glance, a smile, a hand-on-the-shoulder that made the movie or tv show iconic, "good beyond hope."
Of course, everyone denies that there was any gay intent. Dan Stevens called the relationship a "bromance," presuming that both characters are straight. Fans were quick to point out that Tripper alludes to dating women, and Bernie has a Dead Wife, so of course any attempt to find romance is "reading too much into it."
After all, Brian Tyree Henry played the gay superhero Phastos in The Eternals. Dan Stevens has played gay characters several times. If they wanted Tripper and Bernie to be a gay couple, they would make them a gay couple.
But authorial intent is irrelevant. What matters is the hugging, the hand-holding, and "I'm going to kiss you on the mouth."
Bonus: Greg Hatton, who plays Lewis, one of the researchers.
And Dan Stevens' butt
As a big Godzilla fan since 1970, I really enjoyed this movie and was surprised by the 'bromance'. Dan Stevens is supposed to be back in the next installment that's filming right now in Australia. We'll see what happens with his character.
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